The present invention relates to a metallurgical plasma melting furnace for the melting of metals and metal alloys by means of high energy stable flowing plasma arcs.
It is known in the prior art to use plasma burners which are converted to operate with low temperature plasma for the melting of metals and alloys. The plasma burners are preferably arranged in a cylindrically shaped furnace, specifically in the lid and the wall of the furnace, with the location in the wall of the furnace being most preferred. In the most preferred case, the plasma burners are arranged in an offset manner so that equalization of the temperature in the metal bath can be accomplished by means of convection by creating a moment of rotation in the portions of the bath that are close to the surface with a resulting movement being created in the bath. This also creates a moment of rotation in the volume of gas above the bath resulting in a rotary movement of the gas, whereby the operation each burner disadvantageously affects the operation of the remaining burners.
To minimize the effect of the operation of each burner on the operation of the other burners, it has been known to work, in the case of a given arc current, with a plasma arc arrangement which has an abbreviated flow stabilized arc by reducing the voltage. However, the disadvantage of this is that the reduced voltage leads to a reduction of the performance and with that an increase in the time required for melting and an increase in the energy losses which derive from it.